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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

One good thing about work travel is you occasionally get to bump into the site of a large new coaster being built. Such was the case for me when I was able to check out the progress of El Loco at the Adventuredome in Las Vegas (located at Circus Circus). The park 'under the dome' is currently building an S&S custom designed El Loco, with much of the track and supports already in place.

This wide view of the main part of the ride shows off just how far along they are in construction. The ride is being built in the former home of the Rim Runner shoot-the-chutes, now just a memory at Adventuredome.

The twisted layout somewhat resembles the previous El Loco rides that have been built around the globe, but also has plenty of elements all its own.

The ride starts with a left turn out of the station and a quick trip up the lift hill. From there a tight turn around takes place, then the extremely steep first plunge down toward the floor of the dome. The track at the base of the drop is not yet installed, but once it is it will connect to the upward turn you can see in the foreground of this shot.

After a quick block brake the individual cars navigate and outward banked turn, and then head into a dramatically banked turn that sends them into a heartline roll, well really just half of a heartline roll to be accurate.

Once the trains are upside down then dive downward, a clear shot of that can be seen above. Sorry for the foggy nature of the shot - it was taken from inside a window that looks out over the area! As you can see the element is all kinds of twisted, though this angle makes it look less smooth of a transition than it really is.

Here's a zoomed in look at the roll followed by the inverted drop.

After the trains zoom down toward the ground once again they climb up and are ready to cross over to the final portion of the coaster. The section that climbs upward is not in place yet - at least no track - so don't look for that on the photos above. The ride is actually a giant L shape - something that was lost on me until seeing the work in person. The area above is not finished, obviously, but is how the section we've seen so far connects to the finale. From the perspective above the bulk of the ride we've seen would be located to the left. Eventually the track will cross directly over this bridge.

Panning right from the previous image you can see that the final part of the ride has its supports up, but only a few pieces of track. I'm not sure what will take place as the ride crosses this bridge track-wise, but I'm confident it is not an inversion.

One more to put this area into perspective. Here we can see the bulk of the assembled ride in the background, and the support structure seen in the previous photo from the other side. That's also the ride's station you can see in the left of the photo, with the ride's final inversion starting to take place on top of it.

As the track crosses over the station it begins another twist-and-dive, inverting fully before plunging downward. Just so happens that only a part of the twist is in place and the 'dive' has yet to be assembled - but these supports are ready and waiting!

Here's another look at the track rolling over, just because it looks cool! The web of supports should provide some great visuals as the trains head through here.

Once the trains dive down that final time they hit the brakes and will eventually head into the station, which you can see in the photo above. So to recap, while most of the El Loco coasters have a twist-and-dive and a full heartline, Adventuredome's has two twist-and-dives along with other similar elements, like the extremely steep drop and outwardly banked turns.

One final shot I thought was neat - check out just how close the ride's supports come to the neighboring buildings! Talk about tight clearances!

No word on when El Loco at Adventuredome will open, but at the current pace it would appear as though it might not be until the new year. We will stay tuned into the project until then!

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